


that your trespass now becomes a fee

by therealw



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Harvard Era, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Settlement, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealw/pseuds/therealw
Summary: "Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, We remind you that, in fulfilment of the terms and conditions of your disciplinary probation as ruled  by the Administrative Board of Harvard College in its disciplinary meeting, you are hereby required to attend a weekly counselling session for the duration of said probation, schedule of which you will find enclosed."There are a lot of things Mark doesn't want to talk about. Eduardo may or may not be one of them.
Relationships: Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	that your trespass now becomes a fee

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started with a "what if Mark was made to go to therapy during his probation?", and remained unfinished in my WIP folder for years and years until sometime during lockdown I decided to give it a go, but never got around posting it for the TSN-versary, mostly because it's 99% dialogue. And then I decided to post it anyway.

**Cambridge, 7th November 2003**  


       
_Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,_   


       
_We remind you that, in fulfilment of the terms and conditions of your disciplinary probation as ruled by the Administrative Board of Harvard College in its disciplinary meeting held on the 3rd November, by virtue of Article 2 Epigraphs 2.3 and 2.4.1 of the Harvard Regulations, you are hereby required to attend a weekly counselling session for the duration of said probation, schedule of which you will find enclosed. Please consult the attached slip for directions. We would also like to reiterate that the Board will carefully consider Dr. Weintraub’s medical views and opinions in regards to the conditions and/or conclusion of your probation period._   


       
_Yours sincerely,_   


    

__

       
_Cory Way  
Resident Dean, Kirkland House  
Member of the Administrative Board  
Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct of Harvard College (OAISC) _   


    

    
    
    
    
    Dr. Suzanne T. Weintraub MD  
Department of Psychiatry  
Harvard Medical School  
2 West - Room 305  
401 Park Drive - Boston, MA 02215

****

**12th November 2003**

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Zuckerberg?”

“Because the board doesn’t have a sense of humor?”

“Besides that.”

“Because they think if I turn out to be a misogynistic sociopath this way they could at least argue they did all they could to prevent a potential murder rampage?”

“Is that how you see yourself?”

“As a serial killer? Not particularly, no.”

“As a misogynistic sociopath.”

“It does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t clear you unless you at least pretend to cooperate.”

“Wow. That’s rather straightforward, what would Sigmund say.”

“You’re quite quick to write off the method, for someone who took three psychology classes in his Freshman year.”

“You’ve done your homework. Color me unsurprised.”

“Speaking of homework. If you despise therapy so much, where does that leave your mother’s career?”

Mark clenches his jaw. “She’s retired.” A long silence. “What do you need to know.”

“I’d like you to go through the Facemash episode for me, please.”

“You’ve read my blog. I think you have a pretty good idea of how the episode went.”

“No. I have the account of a boy who’s angry and drunk and has just been dumped by his girlfriend. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that those aren’t the best circumstances for an accurate narrative.”

He’s grudgingly impressed.

“Why don’t we start with the break up?” She holds up a hand. “If I have to convince the board that you won’t be the next Boston strangler, I need to establish whether this was an isolated circumstance.”

“She… said things.”

“Okay. What were you talking about?”

“Final clubs.”

“Ah. Have you been punched?”

“No.” Pause. “She just… didn’t understand why they’re important.”

“And why are they important?”

An incredulous look.

“Come on, Mr. Zuckerberg, play along.”

“They’re… exclusive. And fun.”

“And?”

“And they open up a world of opportunities?”

“You scored a 1600 in you SATs and rejected a job at Microsoft to attend Harvard. I’m pretty sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities in life, Mr. Zuckerberg.”

“I thought the rule was ‘don’t enable the narcissist’.”

She smiles. “So. What did Miss Albright say about final clubs that started a fight that led to a break up?”

****

**19th November 2003**

“’Were we let in for our looks? No. Will we be judged on them? Yes’.” A pause. “What does that mean to you?”

Mark purses his lips.

“Please, Mr. Zuckerberg, play along.”

Mark sighs. “You graduate high school and you get into Harvard and you think, ‘now it’s my time, now everything will be different’, but you realize pretty quickly that it really isn’t. Harvard is still high school. It’s still about how many friends you have, and what parties you go to, and whom you’re dating. It’s still a popularity contest.”

“How would you define popularity?”

Mark takes a long moment to think about it. “I suppose it has a different meaning for everyone.”

“And what about for you?”

“I guess… I’d say if social structure is everything, popularity is the scale that measures where you stand in the pyramid. Isn’t this the part where you tell me popularity doesn’t matter?”

“I’m not in the habit of lying to my patients.”

Mark snorts. “Anyway. Final Clubs are the answer to that particular problem.”

“Do you have an interest in politics?”

“Politics?”

“Do you plan on running for office in the future, Mr. Zuckerberg?”

“I don’t believe in politicians. Or politics in general.”

“Then, if it’s not to have the Porcellian push you towards the Senate, what is it that Final Clubs can do for your career that no one else can?”

Mark eyes her.

“There’s your answer, I think.”

“You don’t understand.”

She just smiles.

****

**17th December 2003**

“Mr. Zuckerberg!”

Mark comes awake with a start. Fuck. He’s been having a lot of those micro-sleep episodes lately, since he started coding the new site.

“I haven’t… I haven’t been sleeping a lot lately. Sorry. There’s a project I’m working on and… I would’ve gladly stayed in the dorm for a nap, but…” he gestures at the room and Dr. Weintraub.

“Sleep is a necessity, Mr. Zuckerberg. Even for you, I’m afraid.”

Mark snorts. “You sound like Wardo.”

“Well, he’s right.”

“I swear, he has a radar or something, he just knows when I haven’t slept or eaten a square meal for a couple of days, so he just shows up and badgers me until I do.” A pause. “Sometimes when he’s in the room I feel like my parents are visiting.”

“If it bothers you, why don’t you simply tell him to stop?”

Mark snorts. “As if. He’d keep coming back. He just has this need to _nurture_. Besides, Dustin might kill me if all the free food suddenly stopped appearing.”

“So you voluntarily indulge Eduardo’s need to take care of others, even though it is a source of discomfort for you.”

“Discomfort seems too strong a word for it.”

“Annoyance?”

“He’s only annoying when he does start sounding like my mother.”

“All right. So you’re not annoyed or made uncomfortable by his attempts to take care of you.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Mr. Zuckerberg, it’s my understanding that you don’t generally make a habit of tolerating other people just to avoid upsetting them.”

“Meaning?”

“You don’t think you might enjoy having someone who takes- no, what’s the word you used? Who _nurtures_ you? Or, in particular, having Mr. Saverin do it?”

“I’m not projecting, if that’s what you’re getting at. He genuinely tends to behave like an overbearing Jewish mother.”

“I’m not saying you’re projecting Mr. Saverin’s need to take care of others, which I can’t judge since he’s not the patient here, but I do believe you’re projecting the pleasure you derive from him doing so.”

Mark scowls.

“Sometimes it’s easier than admitting you do need someone who cares enough about you to make sure you eat or sleep or get fresh air once in a while.”

“You’re saying that I can’t admit I enjoy him bringing me fresh bagels every other day? That’s stupid. Of course I do.”

“No. I’m saying you can’t admit you _want_ him to. And if he didn’t, you’d be disappointed.”

“So?”

“You don’t think you have difficulties admitting you need other people?”

“I guess.”

“Needing something from someone else means giving them the power to reject us.”

“And I have issues dealing with rejection, is that your point?” He snorts. “I’m not Wardo, okay? I don’t break down in tears when people don’t like me as soon as they meet me.”

“Oh, my mistake. So _Facemash_ is proof of how maturely you deal with rejection, then.”

Unbidden, Mark’s mouth quirks in a lopsided smirk.

**28th January 2004**

“God, his father is such an asshole. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to have children. On second thought, they should, otherwise how would _you_ make a living, right?”

“Have you ever met Mr. Saverin? Senior, I mean.”

Mark snorts. “No. Not as if he’d ever bother visiting his only son.”

“So your animosity towards him comes purely through Eduardo?”

“My animosity?”

“You seem to feel very strongly about him, considering the two of you have never met.”

“I don’t need to meet him to know he’s an asshole.” A dismissive hand gesture. “You don’t understand, you don’t know how Eduardo gets when…”

“Yes?”

“If he randomly shows up with a bottle of the really good vodka, it means he wants to get drunk enough that a cheap liquor hangover would kill him. It also means he’s had one of his little chats with his father.”

She stares at him, expressionless.

“I notice things, sometimes, okay?” Mark shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “What I mean is… I’m kind of an asshole. I know that, and I don’t particularly care, which I guess kind of confirms it. And yet I have pretty amazing parents. Eduardo, on the other hand, is like the nicest person I know, to the point of being an idiot, actually, and he’s got this complete asshole as a father. It’s… not fair. And by the way, you can add that to your file, I come from a happy, well-adjusted household. That’s bound to knock off a couple points in the potential-psycho-meter.”

“Duly noted.”

****

  
**17th March 2004**  


“Is fame everything you expected?”

“Why do you think I was hoping to be famous?”

“Why didn’t you sell Synapse?”

Mark looks up, startled.

“My son Jeremy is a CS major at MIT. I had heard about you long before your file landed on my desk.”

“You’re not supposed to feed my delusions of superiority.”

“In this particular case, I wouldn’t call it a delusion.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Natalie Portman took one of my classes last year. When she came to my office, I acknowledged who she was and didn’t insult her by issuing the customary caveat about how her fame wouldn’t entail an advantage, as I’m aware many of my colleagues have. People tend to have rather… irrational reactions to people who stand out.”

“Are you comparing me to Natalie Portman? Because besides being short and Jewish, I’m not sure what we…”

“You’re a programming genius, Mr. Zuckerberg. And that’s a great gift, but my job is to find out who you are _besides_ that.”

“And what does Synapse have to do with that?”

“Synapse, getting into Final Clubs, thefacebook… they all seem to be stepping stones to a certain goal that you’ve set for yourself, and I have no doubt that you will achieve it, but besides that, what other things do you wish to achieve in life?”

Mark gapes. “I… I’ve never… I guess I always thought I’d think about it once I was done with the rest.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find this exceedingly clichéd, but once ‘the rest’ is done, you might realize those other things you never considered usually turn out to be much more important.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I know you don’t, Mr. Zuckerberg.”

****

**22nd April 2004**

“I’m leaving for California once the term’s done. Dustin is coming, so is Chris. And we found two interns, too.”

“And Eduardo?”

“He has an internship at Lehman Brothers.”

“In New York.”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“Do you? He certainly doesn't. It does not seem apparent to him why it's ridiculous for the CFO of a company to be on the opposite fucking coast from the company he's supposedly working for.”

“Have you told him that?”

“Of course I have. He insists he's going to find advertisers. As if I'd ever allow Mountain Dew pop-ups on my site.”

“I'm confused.”

“So is he, obviously.”

“No. I mean, if you've told him in no uncertain terms that you won't have sponsors on thefacebook—”

“It's called just Facebook now. We dropped the _the_ “

“Sorry. _Facebook_. If you've clearly explained to Eduardo why you believe it's not a good idea to have advertisements on Facebook, what's the point of generating interest among advertisers?”

“The ad thing is just an excuse,” Mark says waving his hand dismissively. “It's not even about Facebook. Eduardo would never have the balls to quit the internship his father got him.”

“Mr. Saverin's father works for Lehman?”

“What? No, of course n—” 

“Because I was under the impression that this university had existing agreements with many prime Wall Street companies, Lehman Brothers among them.”

“Is that a question?”

“It hasn't occurred to you that perhaps Eduardo wants to pursue this opportunity because it's something _he_ has worked hard for?”

“How is serving coffee and making copies in any way comparable to being my CFO?”

“ _Your_ CFO?”

Mark chooses to ignore her. “I need... Facebook needs him in Palo Alto.” 

“Have you told him that?” The gentleness in her voice is making Mark uneasy. He can't look her in the eye. “It might change his mind.”

“He wouldn't listen.”

“How can you possibly know without even trying?”

Mark doesn't answer, just keeps staring at a point above where her masters title hangs on the wall.

“The house is two blocks away from the Stanford campus and has a pool. Dustin keeps babbling about building a zipline, he's been playing too much Call of Duty.”

And that's that.

****

**29th April 2004**

  


“When you're this quiet you're usually sleeping with your eyes open.”

“I'm not.”

“I know. Hence the _usually_.”

A pause. “We had sex,” he says abruptly, almost in one breath.

“ _We_?”

“Wardo and me.”

“Ah.” To her credit, she doesn't even flinch.

“Are you surprised?”

“You know I can’t answer that. Were _you_ surprised?”

Mark considers it. “No. Not really.” A beat. “It’s weird. Because I’d never thought about it. But when it happened, I wasn’t… it was…”

“Yes?”

“It was _normal_ , like it had happened before.”

“Had it happened before… in your imagination, perhaps?”

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Fine, fine,” she says and raises a hand in a placating gesture. Then, changing tack: “But you just said you weren’t really surprised by it, so the idea might’ve crossed your mind.”

Mark stares resolutely at the door, as if pondering a quick escape.

“Let’s look at it from a different angle. Would it have been surprising, if instead of Eduardo you’d had sex with your friend Mr. Mosk-”

“God! Don’t even… ugh, why’d you even say that? Dustin… _Jesus_!” Mark presses the heels of his hands aggressively against his eyes, as if he could erase the very thought that way. “Jesus!” he says again.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay, so what’s the difference?”

“What’s the diff- Wardo’s my _best friend_.”

“Of course. But still, while I may not be familiar with the particulars of your friendship with Mr. Moskovitz, from what I understand you’re also quite close, and yet the difference in reaction seems a bit… extreme?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.” He’s almost shouting by this point. “I’m twenty. I once had a dream about the lunch lady. So what.” Mark crosses his arms. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he repeats stubbornly.

“So you _had_ thought about it.”

Mark is silent. A minute goes by. Then two.

“All right. And how did the… encounter make you feel?” She may have just been trying to get a reaction, obviously, but Mark bites anyway.

“I’m not discussing this with you! This is just… how is this even relevant?”

“Rest assured, I don’t have the slightest interest in hearing any intimate details. But since my job is to evaluate your emotional state, it falls well within my purview to figure out how this experience made you feel, don’t you think?”

“Well then, for the purposes of your _purview_ , not homicidal.”

“Good. That’s more than I can say for some of the relationships I had when I was your age.”

Mark gapes. “Do you always start behaving like this on your last session with a patient?”

She just smiles and shakes her head. “Actually, you were the one who brought it up, so I feel compelled to ask about your emotional wellbeing, to make sure nothing happened that you didn’t…”

“Jesus! Yes, it was consensual, of course it was! Fuck, I doubt Wardo would even hold hands without making sure I wanted to. It was fine, okay? Perfectly fine and safe and sane and whatever the fuck you want to hear. He woke up before me, as he always does, went to get coffee and donuts, as he always does, and then we had breakfast.” A pause. “In bed.”

“As you always do?”

Mark lets out a grunt and curses inaudibly. 

“What was that, Mr. Zuckerberg?”

Mark grunts again. “No. That part was… new.”

“Well, was it a nice breakfast then?”

It’s impossible to pretend she’s not having fun at his expense at this point. Mark glares daggers at her.

“What about the Ad Board? You know, the whole _purpose_ of this?” he says in the most scornful tone he can muster. Which, for Mark, is a lot. “Will this be on my file?”

“Regardless of widespread misconceptions, the faculty does not have a particular interest in the sexual exploits of undergrads.”

“That’s comforting.”

She smiles. “Well, time’s up, Mr. Zuckerberg, you’re finally free,” she says as she gets up.

Mark follows suit, shuffles uncomfortably in place from one foot to the other, not making a move to leave. “So… will you be informing positively?”

“I have a feeling it won’t matter, either way,” she answers, chuckling softly as if he’d told a joke.  
  
Mark tilts his head. He hates when people act irrationally.

****

**23rd March 2010**

“Mr. Aiken,” Dr Weintraub says, extending her hand.

Mark shakes it and smirks. “Don’t worry, I haven’t developed a case of split personality. I just couldn’t use my real name to book the appointment, you understand.”

“Of course. Please take a seat.” 

Mark does.

“So. What brings you here?”

“I’m in Boston for a Tech Conference.”

“That’s not what I meant, actually.”

“Yeah, I know.” A long pause. “Being here stirs a lot of… I don’t know, it’s just difficult. I try to think back to who I was before Facebook and I… I can barely remember.”

“There is nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments. You’ve created something truly world-changing and you should take pride on that. But you should always remember that it was _you_ who created Facebook, not the other way around.”

“I know.” A pause. “I know. And until now, it was enough. And I never questioned my actions because I always did what was best for Facebook. That was all that mattered. But lately… suddenly a multibillion-dollar empire and redefining online interaction is not enough. God. I really am a greedy asshole.”

“It would be greed if we were talking about money. But we aren’t, are we?”

“No. We really aren’t.” He sighs. “Anyway, I’ve been wondering… well. A lot of things. Look, there are maybe half a dozen people on earth who really knew me before I became _Mark Zuckerberg_. Of the two among those with a Psychiatry degree, I thought I’d ask the one who didn’t breastfeed me.”

She huffs a soft laugh. When Mark doesn’t continue, she prompts, “Ask me…?”

“Do you think it was meant to end badly?”

“What was?”

“Eduardo. He was… he was in love with me.”

“Yes.”

“You could tell?”

“From our sessions, you mean? I strongly suspected. But I’m afraid I found out the old-fashioned way.”

“What does that mean?”

“I saw you both across the quad one day, it must’ve been close to Christmas? It was snowing, you slipped and he grabbed your arm to keep you from falling. The way he looked at you… well.”

“So the old-fashioned way is stalking.” There’s a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“No, Mr. Zuckerberg, I do not stalk my patients. I admit it might make my job easier but I’m afraid I simply don’t have that kind of time.”

Mark looks out the window. “And it wasn’t one-sided, was it?” he asks after a long moment.

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know if you knew. Then.”

“I was… a bit more certain when it came to you, yes.”

Mark nods, more to himself than in answer.

“The scary part is that… I probably would’ve done the same thing if I had known. If I had let myself know, that is.”

“The same thing?”

“The dilution.” 

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have any contact with him nowadays?”

“We…” Mark sighs. “Not willingly, I guess? We run into each other, sometimes. He didn’t use to come to shareholder meetings, but he does now. When he first did, I thought it meant he'd moved on, or at least got over his anger, but... he just sits there with his laptop, making notes. Or playing solitaire, for all I know. It's not as if he ever speaks, anyway.”

“You never talk to each other?”

“At shareholder meetings?”

“In general.”

“Alone? No. Sometimes if Dustin's there, or Chris... but never alone. Maybe we have nothing to say to each other.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“We aren't even friends on Facebook.”

“That's...”

“Ironic. I know,” Mark lets out a derisive snort. “He was my first Facebook friend. The entire time the site was in beta mode, he was my _only_ Facebook friend.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Even I can tell it would be rude to just add him.”

“I meant talking to him.”

“I don't...” he trails off and sighs. “You know what, maybe it's not that we have nothing to say to each other, maybe it's just nothing that the other wants to hear.”

“It's been a while, but I doubt that would usually stop you from telling anyone what's on your mind.”

“Eduardo's not anyone.”

“I know,” she says gently. “You’ve mentioned how these days you value people who knew you _before_. If they're such a rare commodity... perhaps you should work at keeping as many of them as possible in your life.”

“I can't just _call_ him.”

“Why not?”

“Have you forgotten about the lawsuit? There's probably a fucking clause in there explicitly forbidding me from dialling his number.”

“Well, look at it from another angle. You’ve tried avoiding him, and it’s obviously not what you feel you should be doing.”

“And if he refuses to talk to me?”

“You try again.”

“What makes you think that’d work?”

“Mr. Saverin used to have a lot of trouble saying no to you.”

“Yeah, well, things have changed.”

“Well, if you are still experiencing these feelings after such a long time, chances are he is too.”

“That’s a little too close to wishful thinking for my comfort.”

“Relationships have an element of uncertainty. I believe you created an option to describe it.”

Mark snorts. “Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover us, I think.”

“If you were to discuss this with Mr. Saverin, what would you like to say to him?”

“I don’t know. I just… sometimes I feel as if I'd lived my life backwards."

"Backwards?"

"Most people spend their lives trying to achieve these goals everyone has. You know, build your dream, get rich, meet the right person... I did all of those things before turning twenty-one, and maybe it's a sign I'm becoming old and maudlin, but I wish I'd been a little wiser when they first happened."

"I understand. However, the capacity for recklessness is usually lost with age, and without it perhaps you wouldn't have achieved certain things."

"Yes. But perhaps I would've managed not to lose others."

"Mr. Saverin isn't dead, is he?"

Mark narrows his eyes at her.

"Then you haven't really lost him."

****

**12th July 2010**  


  


“Hello?”

“Dr. Weintraub?”

“Speaking.”

“Hello, Dr. Weintraub. I have Mark Zuckerberg on the line, can I patch you through?”

Oh. Not much surprises her these days. “Yes, of course.” A beep.

“Dr. Weintraub.”

“Yes.”

“It’s Mark Zuckerberg.”

“Hello, Mr. Zuckerberg.” A truly long pause. “Anything I can help you with?”

“This isn’t a therapy session over the phone, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Ah.”

“My COO has hired a new engineer, a certain Jeremy Weintraub. Born in Boston, went to MIT… apparently his mother’s a psychiatrist.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I feel obligated to tell you that his direct superior is a complete lunatic.”

“That’s funny, he’s described Mr. Moskowitz as ‘made of awesome’.”

“Yeah, they all think that their first week or so.”

“We’ll see.”

“I also feel obligated to tell you I had nothing to do with his hiring.”

“Okay?”

“He got the job by himself. Dustin was very impressed with his interview.”

“Oh. Thank you. But I don’t see…”

“I talked to Eduardo.”

“I see. And how did it go?”

“You were right.”

“About what?”

“I didn’t… really lose him.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“That’s why I called about Jeremy.”

“I’m… not sure I follow.”

“I wanted to say… thank you. I didn’t hire Jeremy, but I would have, as… as a thank you.”

“I should probably say how it’s just my job and you have no need to thank me, but considering you have my only son’s professional future in your hands, I’m just going to go with ‘you’re welcome’.”

“Yeah.”

A very long pause.

“Was there… anything else you wished to talk about?”

“I….” A groan. “Yeah. I just… I did what you said, I called him, we talked, we agreed to meet for dinner… it went… well. I think. I don’t really know.”

“What makes you unsure about how it went?”

“It felt… like it used to. But better. Like… easier. I didn’t check my phone for almost two hours. He didn’t check it the entire time.”

“Sounds like you both had a great time.”

“Yes. I mean, I think so.”

“But?”

“What makes you think there’s a but?”

“Isn’t there?”

Mark sighs. “It’s just… I paid. There were candles on the table. I dropped him off at his hotel and stepped out of the car to say goodbye. You know, like… date stuff. But…”

“Yes?”

“Every table had candles on it. And he got a cab to the restaurant so it’s not like he had a driver waiting outside to take him home.”

“Are you calling me to ask if I think a dinner at the time of which I was across the continent from, with a man I have never actually met in person, can qualify as a date-date?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps the important thing is whether you want it to be.”

“I had a funny feeling you might say that.”

“All therapists grow predictable after a while.”

“We have spoken once in the last six years, Dr. Weintraub.”

“That’s very true. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“Because you already know the answer.”

“You know how this works.”

A heavy sigh. “Yes. Yes, I did want it to be a date-date.”

“Then you know what to do next.”

“You know what might make me feel better? Jeremy telling me about all the times you weren’t right.”

“Good luck with that, Mr. Zuckerberg.”

****

**8th November 2010**

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, sweetie, how are you?”

“Sorry I didn’t call you back last night, it was madness in here. The site crashed and it took us almost six hours to stabilise it.”

“Facebook crashed?”

“Yeah. And Dustin was pretty much useless for the first half hour because he kept laughing like a Bond villain and trying to hose people down with these huge champagne bottles he apparently had stashed in his office.”

“Do you… think Dustin did it?”

“Did what?”

“Crash the site?”

“Wh— oh no, no. It was the relationship status thing for sure. Traffic went up 800%. Like, literally. 834% to be exact.”

“The relationship status thing?”

“Sorry, you probably haven’t heard. Mark changed his relationship status to “in a relationship” for the first time since he built the site. And you’re not gonna believe who’s his boyfriend.”

She can’t help it. She throws her head back and laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sonnet CXX.


End file.
